Pat Toomey's debt plan rejected by U.S. Senate

WASHINGTON — Sen. Pat Toomey's solution for the nation's recurring debt-ceiling worries is to prioritize what the federal government would pay first in case Congress can't agree to extend the limit.

The Senate on Thursday voted down the Pennsylvania Republican's plan, which he had offered as an amendment to a bill that puts off dealing with the debt limit for three months. Every Democrat voted to table it, which effectively kills the amendment. Every Republican supported Toomey.

Toomey contends that hitting the debt ceiling wouldn't be so terrible as long as the U.S. government promised to use the money it did have on hand to first pay its debt obligations, pay Social Security and pay active duty military personnel.

"It's an attempt to absolutely minimize the disruption, the danger and the drama, it's an attempt to get away from 'government by cliff' and to have a sensible approach to bringing our spending under control," Toomey said on the Senate floor.

If the plan sounds familiar, it's because Toomey first floated a version of it in January 2011, shortly after joining the Senate. He took the idea to the editorial pages of The Wall Street Journal and on national cable shows and tangled with now departing Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner over it.

The aggressive push by a freshman lawmaker is one reason Toomey was selected to serve on the so-called deficit reduction supercommittee, which was a byproduct of a deal to raise the debt ceiling in 2011.

His brainchild was voted down in March 2011 by similar margins.

Toomey reupped his plan this year, forecasting that when Congress does have to deal with the debt limit again in May or June, prioritizing payments gives Republicans more wiggle room to use the ceiling as leverage to get spending cuts and deficit reduction.

Toomey's plan has its share of critics, who argue that paying some things and not others still means many government programs — from education to transportation to law enforcement to Food and Drug Administration inspections — would come to a halt. Such disruptions, critics say, would still result in economic uncertainty.

U.S. Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., who spoke against Toomey's amendment on the Senate floor, compared it to the popular movie and book series the "Hunger Games," because programs would be pitted against each other for survival like the children in the series.

"You think the country is worried about a lack of confidence now, if this were the law … there would be even less confidence. There would be total chaos in this country," Baucus said. "I cannot think of a more disruptive amendment that would cause so many problems. It truly is a 'Hunger Games' amendment."

Joining a majority of the Senate Republicans, Toomey voted against the underlying bill. The measure suspends dealing with the debt limit for just over three months, allows the government to continue borrowing in that time, and then adjusts the ceiling to account for the additional borrowing. Just 12 Republicans voted for it.

After the vote, Toomey said he couldn't support "further unlimited borrowing without spending discipline."

When Congress is faced with the debt ceiling decision again in late spring, Toomey will likely revisit his plan once again, though the reality of it ever passing with a Democratic-controlled Senate is nil.

Toomey's spokeswoman, E.R. Anderson, said the senator will be looking for other means of dealing with the nation's debt.